Antony N Britt (calls himself Nick, to be awkward) is the author of horror novel, Dead Girl Stalking – a page-turning tale that slaps you in the face when you least expect it. He lives in Walsall in a house full of CDs, videos, books and many unread pieces of paper which may hold the secret to eternal life, but are most probably pizza menus.

Ghost Stories: Tales from the Dead of Night

Meet …
Mark, who loves Alison, but must first get past her dead father.
Jessie and Tommy. In fear of what’s in the attic.
Colin. As a medium, he’s used to ghosts. It’s the living he needs to be scared of.
Alec, haunted by a tragedy which took place forty years ago. Now the past has caught up.
Karen and Matthew, locked in a manor house with the spirit of its sadistic former owner.
Irene. All she wanted was attention; now she wishes it would go away.
And meet Cara. Disturbed by the presence in her bedsit, and a bloodstain which keeps returning.

By the author of Dead Girl Stalking, Ghost Stories contains 20 tales from the dead of night which will have you frightened to turn off the light. A book best left face down, under the bed, so the spirits can’t escape.

The Sunday Roast – Into the New Year With a Little Gangnam Style.

Well, at least that load of nonsense is over with for another year.

Yes, I’m referring to Christmas, and I guess I can truthfully say, it passed me by.

The one good thing about the Christmas holiday was I had David home for the duration. He is, as some of you will know, my heavily autistic son who is now at residential college. Now I say it was good to have him home, the downside of this was, I had to build his Thomas the Tank train track.

There, just to prove I did it at least once.

Now I have to admit, construction was not without a few hitches. On the side of the box it is stated the age range is 3+. It also says adult assembly maybe required.

Maybe? There’s no maybe about it. Nearly an hour it took and this set is supposedly one of the more basic. Adult assembly? You need a degree in civil engineering to construct this set of suspension bridges. To be honest, I think it would have been easier to build a real suspension bridge.

Still, after much swearing at pieces of plastic, the thing was done as you can see above in all its glory.

I don’t know why I’m complaining. It could have been worse. I could have had to set up a game of Ker-Plunk.

At least in the UK, we’ve always had a postal service to be proud of.

If you have read many of my blogs before, you may suspect a hint of sarcasm in the above title.

For a while, I have had some boxes in my front lobby ready to go to the dump. I had a bit of time the other day so thought, yeah, I’ll take them. Before I did, I had a quick check inside. Don’t know why, I just thought I would. Then I remembered, it was because of what happened the last time. A couple of years back, I had more boxes of junk to be cleared and like now, they were in the porch. It was also Christmas, which was a coincidence. Anyway, these boxes were folded shut so imagine my surprise to look inside and find two Christmas cards within plus a red slip from the post office to say I had a parcel they’d tried to deliver but it had been taken back to the post office.

Now to get these items into the box of clutter, the delivery person back then would have had to open the box to drop them in. It could have been worse. Previous postal workers over the years have left parcels in my rubbish bin, with Old Mad Woman who lives next door, and even round the back of my house, in the winter, where I didn’t go for weeks and when I did, I found a soggy, ruined parcel. Others attempted to redeliver even though I’d rung to say nobody would be in. Thankfully now, it has improved.

But back to the previous year’s experience. Never mind, I thought, I had the delivery ticket. So I rang the number given to see if they still had it. I got through fairly quick, only to be told by a recorded message that the easiest way collect was to go down to the post office.

Ah, trying to put me off. They weren’t going to beat me. So I hung on hold – for 15 minutes, then gave up.

I searched the website which resembled a bizarre cryptic treasure hunt devised by a lunatic. I tried to get to the page I wanted and when finally achieving my goal, I was met with the answer that, ‘The easiest way collect was to go down to the Post Office.’

Heavens, I thought. This was useless. Then I had the best idea I could think of. I reckoned the easiest way collect was to go down to the post office.

Therefore, I took off and made it with 30 seconds to spare (They were shutting early that day without telling anybody, save for a cardboard sign on the door, all because it was New Year’s Eve.

I collected my package, looked and saw the horror. It wasn’t even for me, it was for a neighbour. And no, it wasn’t the annual wrongly delivered Christmas card to the Stroods down the road. They’d had theirs for that year.

Why did I always get the bad service? Perhaps the Post Office were just trying to annoy me.

Postal deliveries. Improved, but still much better when it was done by this guy.

Why?

I read recently there is to be a second inquest into the death of Amy Winehouse. What is the point of that? I think you’ll find after 18 months, she’s still dead.

Am I alone in the world?

Okay, I’m going to have to log into You Tube to check this out. It appears I am the only person on this planet who hasn’t a bloody clue what Gangnam Style is.

Back in a bit …

Okay. Seen it – totally nonplussed. I think I can live my life without a little Gangnam in it, though it does remind me of something. It’s at the back of my mind. Where did they get the idea from?

Ah yes.

Give that man a hand …

I read this week that the first hand transplant has been conducted in the UK.

Hmmmm. Not sure I’d fancy it. I mean, how would the right hand know what the left’s been doing? The donor might have been addicted to internet porn. Ugh! Just keep that image in mind next time you pick your teeth with a donated hand.

And a Happy New Year to you all.

I did vow to put the roast on a diet. Chop it from the normal 1000 words to about 500. Failed miserably. It’s still nearing the usual figure. Oh well, welcome to the New Year and remember, only just over 350 shopping days till Christmas.

6 Comments:

As you know, Nick, I’ve more space than I need, but I’m now pondering a visit to ToysAmWe with the thought of buying a train set… I suspect Thomas The Tank Engine is a little behind me, now, but there must be something that I’d go for. I will wait for the price to put me off.

Maybe we’ve always been lucky with the postal service on our side of town. They’re an excellent bunch who always have a smile and cheerful word if I’m there when the delivery arrives. You remind me of the Two Ronnies’ joke about most of the postage cost being for storage.

I’d not heard of Gangnam ‘Style’ until yesterday’s excellent gathering of Writers in Walsall, but I agree with your David Brent observation. Part of the embarrassment I suffer whenever I watch ‘The Office’ is that awkward sense that he reminds me of me….

This was NOT the first UK hand transplant: haven’t you seen “The League Of Gentlemen”?

After the discomforting sight of bith christian and islam peddlers of buffoonery in town, yesterday, resulting is surprisingly short confrontations by yours-truly, I’m now watching ‘Bible’s Buried Secrets’ again. It’s an excellent retreat to reason presented by the excellent Francesca Stavrakapoulou.

I had post going astray like that once. It was a credit card. It didn’t arrive so I phoned them and they cancelled it and sent a new one. That didn’t arrive, but I was asked to have a rival card so did. Months later I found a letter under the freezer, which happens to be by the front door because it won’t fit into the kitchen. It was a credit card! It has disappeared again now, I think it went into the recycling… I don’t understand all the fuss about Gangnam style either.